Hotel solution remains elusive

You’d think that a convention center hotel in the Palm Beaches would be something that is very exclusive, but so far it has only been elusive.

The Palm Beach Daily News editorial cartoon that I created in May 1992 shows just how long the Palm Beach County Convention Center has been missing a hotel.

When this cartoon ran, the convention center was under construction and scheduled to be open in about a year. But with the economy in a post-tech crunch downturn, no hotel company was remotely interested in starting such a project.

Many people were questioning the wisdom of building the convention center without its hotel component. What was the point of having a 350,000 square-foot facility capable of attracting more than a thousand visitors and exhibitors per event if there were no convenient rooms for them?

A troubled corridor

The entire Okeechobee Boulevard corridor has had a history of near-death experiences. Seeing the undeveloped hotel property reminded me of my reaction in 1989 when I first saw the gaping 80-acre demolition site for Henry Rolfs and David Paladino’s Uptown/Downtown development. After years of watching real estate boom and bust cycles, my intuition told me it would be a long time coming.

Sure enough, one of the worst recessions in American history hit within months. Uptown/Downtown went bankrupt, leaving an open sore in the middle of downtown West Palm Beach for nearly a decade before new West Palm Beach “strong mayor” Nancy Graham committed public money to a dicey deal with lien holders and developers to build CityPlace.

Financial woes and controversy

When the Palm Beach County Convention Center eventually opened in January 2004, Delray-based Ocean Properties got the hotel contract. Unfortunately, legal squabbles and budget politics caused delays and the deal ultimately fell apart in 2008 because of the housing slump.

Finally, in 2010, the county settled on the Related Cos, developer of CityPlace, to restart the project. But Related has not been immune to economic woes either. It has mainly been engaged in fighting a foreclosure suit against CityPlace until recently. That loan dispute has now been resolved, leading some to believe that the convention hotel project will be moved to the front burner again.

If so, it’s not a moment too soon. Without an adjacent hotel, the convention center has been unable to compete with other South Florida venues. After costing taxpayers $84 million to build, it has continued to lose millions more.

One can only hope that the timing is right to finish the project on what is basically the third try. With a completed hotel, the convention center might become a revenue provider rather than an economic burden. Then maybe the newly developed corridor into Palm Beach will be able to live up to its impressive looks and earn its keep.